Interesting Times
by Sonnenkoenigen
Summary: Komui and Jerry, after Kanda left in search of Allen.


**Author's note**: Usual disclaimer applies.

* * *

**Interesting Times**

"Now, darling, take it easy!" Jerry says, handing a cup of tea to Komui.

"I can't!" Komui wraps his hands around the cup, letting it burn him a little. "What was she thinking? Why would she help him? Why would he ask her to? I know he doesn't think of people as friends, but I thought he cared about her at least a little. I never imagined he'd use her that way."

"He didn't use her, darling," Jerry says. "Don't sell your sister so short."

"Why?" Komui takes a sip of his tea, something herbal Jerry concocted to calm his nerves, although the brandy he spikes it with might be what's doing the trick. "Why did she have to be put in that position at all?"

"What were you going to do, lock Kanda up?"

"Maybe I should have. I didn't think he'd just up and disappear."

Jerry sits down, leaning back into the overstuffed chair, and smiles, his cup resting more lightly in his hand. "What else was he supposed to do? Become a second Womb?"

"I don't think there's enough of him left for that," Komui says. "Damn it, I could have protected him!"

"I doubt he'd have appreciated that."

Komui stares into the fragrant steam. "No. Probably not, but of all the things he could have done, I didn't expect him to go after Allen like that."

"What did you expect?" Jerry asks.

"I didn't expect him to come back at all," Komui says, "much less leave an hour later. I didn't expect any of this."

"Look at it this way. He's impossible to live with if he's not getting laid, and if he stuck around, he wouldn't be getting laid."

Komui looks up sharply. "What?"

Jerry leans his chin on his hand and smiles. "I see everyone in this place three times a day when they're not on missions. Not hard to put two and two together."

"What do you mean?"

Jerry smiles. "He was gentler after Allen arrived."

"Kanda? Gentler?" Komui sips his tea, savoring the bite of the brandy.

"Comparatively. He threatened people slightly less often, and was more likely to snort and turn on his heel than lash out. I could tell when they stopped, too. Kanda was even worse than before." Jerry crosses his legs. "Komui, darling, did you really think you were the only one looking after those children?"

"No," Komui says. "I just didn't think anyone else knew." In truth, he's shocked by the fact that the only reason he knew was a glimpse of straight shoulders and a glossy black ponytail on a security recording.

"Komui, you're a good father," Jerry says, smiling, "and they need a good father. You can leave the mothering to me."

Jerry is a good mother, Komui thinks to himself, and not just to the younger Exorcists but to everyone. He feeds them, fusses over them, throws parties for their birthdays, listens when someone's drowned their sorrows a bit too deeply. For the kids, he just listens, bribing them back into good spirits with their favorite foods. If anyone has their finger on the emotional pulse of Headquarters, it's Jerry. "Does anyone else know?"

"I think it's just the two of us. Everyone found Kanda too cold and foul-tempered to bother with, so it never occurred to them that anyone might have the balls to try it." Jerry smiles. "Let's face it, darling, given what the Order was doing to them, they're probably better off now, especially if they're together. Allen and Kanda together are damned near invincible."

"You think Kanda will find him?" At this point, finding Allen Walker seems like a lost cause.

"No, but Johnny will," Jerry assures him.

And Kanda will find Johnny because of what Marie and Lenalee told him, and now they're facing charges for aiding and abetting in treason.

He wonders what they will do to her this time, if there will be anything left of her when they're through. The helpless anger he's swallowed down ever since he joined the Order threatens to overwhelm him.

"You've done the best you could," Jerry assures him.

Komui sets his teacup down and takes off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose to stop his tears. "It wasn't good enough."

Jerry laughs. "You sound just like a father! Darling, the babies are flying the nest. We can't stop that."

"If they were flying out into a peaceful world, I wouldn't care," Komui says, "but the world they're flying into will tear them to shreds."

"They've got claws and teeth. They'll put up a damned good fight."

Komui thinks back on those black-draped coffins.

"You raised your sister well," Jerry adds. "She's strong enough to do the right thing."

"It was the right thing," Komui pleads, "wasn't it?" If there is one thing more unbearable than seeing her suffer for the right reasons, it's seeing her suffer for the wrong ones.

"It was," Jerry says firmly, "and you know it."

"But she's still just a child!" Komui says.

Jerry looks at him with eyes that are both firm and fond, if a little overly bright. "She's a splendid Exorcist and you helped her become that. Don't give up on her now."

"I haven't. I just wish she wasn't an Exorcist at all." How many times has he wished them back in China, back to the house their parents left them, or better yet, back with their parents? He could come home on holidays, eat his mother's cooking, argue with his father and see how much Lenalee had grown, maybe chase off a few enterprising boys.

"I wish that none of them were Exorcists," Jerry says. "I wish that we all had perfectly normal, boring lives. Well, not me. My life would never be boring, but the rest of them, I wish their lives were boring. And yet…is it wrong of me to be proud of them? To think of them as our children?"

When Komui was younger and coming to terms with what he is, he also came to terms with his regret at never having children. When he came to Headquarters, all he intended was to be there for Lenalee. The idea that he would be in charge of others like her never occurred to him. "Aside from the fact that we're too young to have children that age, I don't see why it would be," he says. "We're the closest thing to parents they have. Better that we love them and are proud of them than that we turn our backs on them."

Jerry's smile is wistful. "I never thought I'd be a father, much less a mother, and I'm enjoying it so much I feel guilty. I worry about them, especially now, but I love taking care of them and I'm a little sad that they're growing up."

"There's Timothy," Komui offers.

"Our little hellion, yes. But the others…when this is all over, they'll leave home, and I've grown so fond of them."

When this is all over. Komui stares into the fire, reaching for the teacup, for the brandy he tells himself he's not really drinking every night because it's hidden among the herbs, but without it he can't sleep for the demons in his head. He always assumed that his watch would be much like his predecessor's, too many Demons* and too few Accommodators. Instead, it appears that he's been cursed to live in interesting times.

When did it start. The day their parents died? The day the Order kidnapped his sister? The day he decided to follow her, because he had nothing else to live for? It would have been so much easier if he'd hidden his head in the sand. After all, what power does he have compared to Central? How effective has he really been? The Third Exorcists happened on his watch, the disaster at North America Branch happened on his watch, Allen's imprisonment happened on his watch, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, just as there is nothing he can do now to keep his sister out of custody. He's done his absolute best, and it hasn't been enough.

He remembers the moment they let him hold Lenalee for the first time, a tiny, fussy bundle wrapped in a blanket, and when he touched his finger to her chrysanthemum-bud mouth, she sucked on it and quieted, large black eyes staring in wonder at his face. His parents were resigning themselves to not having another son, but Komui thought his sister was the most perfect creature on earth.

He remembers the day he watched, two men hanging onto his arms, as they dragged her away, remembers the day he saw her tied to a bed, her hair filthy, her wrists bandaged, her eyes unseeing, broken, despairing, her sparkle so dimmed that she would never really regain it.

Jerry reaches across the chair, and hooks his fingers onto Komui's, a warm, steadying presence that just might rein him in a little while longer. "They are doing the best they can, darling, and they are doing splendidly, including Lenalee. She acted out of love, love she learned from you, and it was a brave, noble thing she did."

Komui wishes there was comfort in that, but there isn't. He can feel the fury building up in him like the energy in a Van de Graaff generator. He has seen too much, read too much in the files, and all of it has stayed with him, every name, every abuse. He has not forgotten, and he also cannot forgive.

Jerry's fingers shift, intertwining with his, and they stare into the fire in silence.

* * *

*Regarding Demons/akuma: Any time a work is translated, there are sacrifices. I don't know why the decision was made to not translate the word "akuma", but when that was done, a lot of potential wordplay was lost. In order to regain that, I chose to translate "akuma" as Demon, capitalizing it to distinguish it from the kind of demon not made by the Earl. In doing so, I undoubtedly lost whatever was gained in not translating that word, but that's how translation goes. You win some; you lose some.


End file.
